State to miss court target on prison cuts

Updated 12:35 am, Sunday, May 5, 2013

Among the governor's proposals is for 1,250 more inmates to move into prison-run firefighting camps.

Among the governor's proposals is for 1,250 more inmates to move into prison-run firefighting camps.

Photo: Rich Pedroncelli, Associated Press

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An aerial view of San Quentin State Prison on Friday, Sept. 28, 2012.

An aerial view of San Quentin State Prison on Friday, Sept. 28, 2012.

Photo: Paul Chinn, The Chronicle

State to miss court target on prison cuts

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(05-04) 22:34 PDT -- Gov. Jerry Brown says he can't fully comply with a federal court order to reduce the state's prison population by nearly 10,000 this year.

Instead, in a late-night legal filing, the governor proposed a series of measures that state lawyers said would get the prison population to within 2,570 inmates of the court-imposed level by the end of the year - angering advocates who said Brown was flouting a federal judicial order.

For its part, the state submitted its proposals "under protest," Jeffrey Beard, director of the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, said Friday. He said the measures - including transferring prisoners to firefighting camps and possibly reducing some inmates' sentences - were "ugly," and that the state couldn't comply with the court order before mid-2014 without "adversely affecting public safety."

A three-judge panel has ordered the state to lower its prison population to 109,500, or 137.5 percent of designed capacity, by Dec. 31. Brown plans to appeal the order to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled in 2011 that overcrowding in California prisons had degraded health care to a point that it violated the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

The state's proposals, which Brown submitted less than an hour before a Thursday midnight filing deadline, include:

-- Moving 1,600 prisoners to jail cells that the state would lease from Alameda and Los Angeles counties. The leases would be separate from Brown's realignment program, in which 25,000 low-level felons have been sentenced to county jail instead of state prison since October 2011.

-- Continuing to house more than 8,000 California felons in out-of-state prisons.

-- Leasing additional, unspecified space in private prisons, which would not be available until next year.

-- Drafting legislation to authorize the "medical parole" of about 400 elderly or disabled inmates and to increase sentence-reduction credits for taking part in prison programs.

The Brown administration did not endorse the sentence-reduction measures but said it would allow lawmakers to consider them. To take effect this year, before the Dec. 31 deadline, a bill would need a two-thirds majority vote in the Legislature.

No sentencing changes

Brown did not propose any changes in state sentencing laws, which have substantially increased the prison population in the last three decades.

He rejected the court's proposal to speed up paroles of aging inmates serving sentences of up to life in prison, saying it would violate state laws and the rights of crime victims. Nor did he suggest that the court use its constitutional authority to override restrictions in state laws.

The prison health care system is now "one of the best in the nation," state lawyers told the court - echoing an assertion Brown made in January when he called for an end to federal court oversight of the system.

Court-appointed monitors, however, have reported continuing deficiencies in staffing levels and access to care. Prisoners' advocates said the Brown administration has failed to make serious efforts to improve conditions and is ignoring its duties under the law.

"The court has been extremely patient" since its first ruling in 2009 and has allowed state officials to decide how to end overcrowding, said attorney Rebekah Evenson of the nonprofit Prison Law Office, representing inmates who filed suit over prison health care in 2001. But she noted that the court has also threatened to hold officials in contempt if they fail to meet the deadline.

Crime rates declining

"Prison populations around the country have been going down (and) crime rates have also been going down," belying the state's argument that further reductions would endanger the public, Evenson said. By the state's own assessments, she said, more than 40 percent of the prisoners pose a "low risk" of reoffending if released.

Some legislative leaders gave Brown higher marks.

Lawmakers' backing

Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, said he supported the governor's Supreme Court appeal of "an order that ignores the massive reform and reduction in prison population brought by realignment" and other recent improvements.

Assembly Republican leader Connie Conway of Tulare said she also backed the appeal and wants current prisons expanded.

"The governor and the Legislature must do everything within (their) power to prevent the release of dangerous felons onto our streets," she said.